Communication sessions among several people are a commonplace form of communication today. Such communication sessions are sometimes known as conference calls, teleconferences, multi-party calls, meet-me conferences, audio conferences, etc. Communication sessions can take many forms, such as audio, video, or multi-media. Likewise, any number of people can attend a communication session such as a lecture or a presentation. Likewise, any number of people can listen to a radio broadcast or view a television broadcast. For simplicity, the present disclosure will hereinafter refer to any or all of the foregoing terms as a “communication session,” regardless of the form of the communication session, the medium of the communication session, and what technology interconnects the people on the communication session. Thus, an audio conference is a communication session.
A communication session with many participants can pose difficulties. Advances in technology have made it possible for almost any number of people to participate in a communication session. However, participants can face barriers in being able to follow and understand the proceedings, or to actively take part.
One well-known way to better follow and understand what happened in any communication session is to record it for later consumption. For example, after the communication session is over and the recording of it is available, an employee can add to the recording a set of index notes or commentary to help a listener navigate the material. In another exemplary scenario, a student attending a lecture annotates a recording of the lecture in real-time by adding digital notes or photographs when the lecturer makes a point that is of interest to the student. When listening to the recording at a later time, the student can view the digital notes and photographs at the appropriate time, because they are time-aligned with the lecture. Additionally, the prior art includes electronic note-taking devices that capture a listener's notes during a lecture or meeting. These are useful note-taking tools.
Other well-known techniques in the art include instant messaging in which messages are exchanged in a medium that is distinct from the principal communication session. Likewise, Twitter™ enables participants to transmit comments to others, in a broadcast setting, while the principal communication session is taking place. Instant messaging and Twitter typically occur in parallel with the communication session, for example, during a presentation or trade show. In this way, commentary and review can reach a potentially wide audience.
The prior art also includes creating a transcript of a communication session. Some products offer searching of a recorded clip for a spoken word. Tagging on the World Wide Web is used for categorization or labeling of content, such as tagging a web site, or tagging a video clip. Tagging is useful for adding information “after-the-fact,” i.e., after the content has been created. In sum, traditional approaches are directed at commentary or personal note-taking—approaches that fall outside the content-creation or content-communication scope of the principal communication session.
However, these techniques present disadvantages in business settings.